I spams
Turkey ball
Nebraska and Colorado renew their day-after
Thanksgiving clash Friday in a game that could
help NU national title hopes. PAGE 7
A AE
Parisian Life
Eugene Atget took hundreds of photographs ofParis
at the turn of the century. An exhibit at the Sheldon
highlights his work’s importance. PAGE 13
Rain, snow, high 38. low 26.
VOL. 99 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 „ ' NO. 64
p
Y2K contingency
plans ready to go
By Kimberly Sweet
Senior staff writer
Service providers across Lincoln
and Lancaster County are expecting
“business as usual” come Jan. 1,2000.
But just in case, those who provide
critical services to area residents will
have large standby teams that will be
ready to conquer any glitch that arises
as a consequence of year 2000 rollover.
That was the message delivered to
those who attended the Y2K workshop
on community preparedness Monday
night at the Lancaster County
Extension Office.
Representatives from businesses
and agencies reported on their
progress in dealing with Y2K issues.
All representatives said they were
ready to face the much-talked-about
“millennium bug,” which could show
its face in 38 days.
“People need to understand that
utility companies have spent time,
effort and money to guarantee there
won’t be a disruption of services,” said
Doug Ahlberg, Emergency Services
coordinator for Lincoln and Lancaster
County. “But whatever the case may
be, contingency plans are in [dace.”
Bill Lucke, a representative from
Peoples Natural Gas, said his company
isn’t worried about the flow of electric
ity and gas to its clients’ houses on Jan.
1,2000.
The company is more worried
fcfc
Whatever the case
may be, contingency
plans are in place”
DougAhlberg
Emergency Services coordinator
about the systems that measure the
flow to each consumer’s home or busi
ness.
“Most of our concern comes with
monitoring, measuring and metering,”
Lucke said. “It won’t affect the flow of
electricity or power to customers.”
UtiliCorp United, the company that
serves Peoples Natural Gas, has been
working on addressing year 2000
issues since 1994, Lucke said.
Lincoln Electric System has been
ready for the much anticipated Jan. 1,
2000, date since June.
It participated in year2000 drills in
April and September to test its equip
ment and spent $4.5 million to update
it, said Larry Pelter, a representative of
the company.
The company is not expecting a
loss of power, Pelter said.
But because Nebraska is connect
ed with half the country through the
eastern interconnect, the worst-case
Please see Y2K on 3
Research: Grazing
may be cost-effective
■ Instead of harvesting
food for cattle, letting
cows mingle with the crop
could save money.
By Michelle Starr
Staff writer
Because of recent UNL research,
ranchers may be able to save some time
and money by letting their cattle do
some of the work.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
researchers have been conducting a
series of research projects in the
Sandhills with the goal of decreasing
ranchers’expenses.
Rather than using people to harvest
the hay that cattle eat throughout the
spring and early summer, UNL
researchers have found it is more cost
effective to allow foe cattle to graze on
foe fields during that part of the year,
said Walter Schacht, UNL associate
professor of range science.
Schacht, along with Jerry Volesky, a
UNL range and forage specialist, and
Devyn Richardson, a UNL graduate
student, are researching what kind of
grazing practices would be the most
cost-effective and ecologically safe.
The 2-year-old study examines how
many cattle can be allowed to graze on a
plot of land, the number of months they
are allowed to graze and die time of year
they graze to determine the most cost
effective method of combining grazing
and haying the Sandhills wet meadows.
Grazing in the Sandhills is possible
because of wet meadows that have high
water tables and some small lakes. The
ground is consistently wet, Volesky
said.
The study’s preliminary reports
show that fmm an ecological, economi
cal and nutritional standpoint, the idea is
a win-win situation, Schacht said.
The cattle are benefiting from a
boost in nutritional value from fresh
hay, and ranchers would benefit from a
deaease in labor costs, Schacht said.
Another benefit is that the grazing
land does not inhibit other plant or ani
mal species from living there too, mak
ing grazing ecologically safe for the
area, Vblesky said.
The study was based on two related
studies conducted during die early and
mid-1990s. The UNL study has been
Please see GRAZING on 3
Lane Hickenbottom/DN
TO EAT or not to eat? Some UNL students said that eating turkeys is barbaric and are urging students to
choose substitutes for the Thanksgiving traditional fare. Area turkey fanners disagree that turkeys are treat
ed cruelly on farms.
Turkeys a seasonal focus
■ As stores are busy
stocking the popular
Thanksgiving dinner
food, protests linger.
Bt Margaret Behm
Staff writer
Thanksgiving can mean a vari
ety of things: For some students, it’s
a time to protest animal rights, and
for grocery stores, it’s a time to *
stock turkeys.
Either way you look at it, the
center of attention around this time
of year is that feathered, gobbling
bird.
Jason Nord, a member of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Students for Animal Rights, doesn’t
want people to buy a traditional
Thanksgiving turkey.
Nord has been a vegan, which is
a person who doesn’t eat animal or
dairy products, for the past year and
a half, and he was a vegetarian for a
year before that.
“I urge people to not buy
turkeys or any meat but to go vege
tarian,” said Nord, a UNL senior
philosophy and English major.
He started his eating habits
because of the suffering animals go
through, he said.
“I don’t understand why the suf
fering of an animal is less important
than' the suffering of a human,”
Nord said.
A majority of turkeys are raised
on factory farms where they are
mistreated, Nord said. He objected
to what he called cruelty in turkey
raising.
Turkeys are raised to abnormal
sizes so they can’t support their
own weight, making it impossible
for them to stand up, Nord said.
Turkeys are also taken away
from their friends and families at a
Please see TURKEY on 3
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